Malediction of the Depth – Silence in Judgement

"I would like some volcanic glass from the New World.", Dawn requested Zorro first, getting straight to the request.

"Alright, I can make it. In exchange, I need a few smoke bombs with concealment powers.", something he needs if the Saintess acts up.

"I can provide that.", Lea spoke up. Making talismans for weeks means she also learned how to insert her Hexes into them.

Making a Hex that combines Silence and Cloak, then stuffing it into a bomb, is quite easy now.

"Hold on...", Dawn frowned, "Does this mean I need to pay you something?"

In a three-way exchange, all parties would want something.

"I want...", Lea doesn't actually need anything, aside from a better work environment, which is impossible at the moment, "A gun."

Lea isn't used to firearms, but seeing how hectic things have become. She needed something more than a sword that could cut through almost everything.

"A mystical gun with Surge, Melody, and Resonance."

That was her full order. Being near a smart person for so long means she somehow becomes smarter.

"That's... way too much for some smoke bombs or volcanic glass, right?", Dawn let out a dry, awkward laugh.

Unlike Dawn, who thinks logically, Lea is someone who thinks emotionally.

"I have more work, but my salary didn't increase one bit.", she let out her pent-up frustration.

Interrogration which Lea hates, capturing spies and suspicious Pathstriders. All of it may be included in her job as a Shadow Guard; besides everything pre-war, she now has no hazard pay.

It might be because it is wartime, Lea's birthplace may be Ryteline, but she was still a Renlou citizen. She honestly had no loyalty to the country, only to Dawn because she's her friend.

"A war is happening, I can't accommodate you.", Dawn shook her head.

Thinking a bit, Lea replied, "Then give me the location of a weapon maker that can satisfy my demands."

The princess stared at her, as if she didn't believe what Lea just said, "Serious? Do you know what factions the Church of Progress (name still pending) has?"

Lea thought a bit more... the Cult of Technology. Those crazy inventors.

"Oh.", she realized belatedly.

She truly has nothing she wants...

Seeing the situation, Rasputin spoke up, "For now, let's do it this way. Proceed with the exchange, then Dantes and Bathory can sort it out later."

Since they are right next to each other. Dawn sleeps in her workshop for most of the time; Lea's room is right beside it. This debt can be settled anytime.

It was the quickest way to solve this problem.

"Do you approve of this setup?", Zorro asked Lady Keter.

"I approved.", she nodded, then returned to read her book.

The exchange ended that way. It was Lea's turn to ask.

"Do any of you know how to get to Australia?", she asked Zorro in particular.

But he shot it down instantly, "I wouldn't recommend it. It's full of deadly creatures, both poisonous and venomous. One wrong move and you will die."

"You are understating it, my Trailblazer.", Lady Keter chimed in, "The Heretic's experiments left millions dead, but there are some Horrors that came to existence."

Horrors are Pathstriders who failed to ascend or were taken over by the Paths, becoming monsters that lash out toward everything in madness and terror. But ultimately, they are humans.

"Half-Horrors, creatures born from those Horrors left on the landmass between the two continents. They dominate the land for a good thousand years, so it's extremely dangerous."

Zorro, being an adventurer, knows how strictly some information is kept. Australia's current condition is one of them. He only knows that some high-ranking members are stationed there in collaboration with the Blood Knights Order, the most brutal Order of the Church of the Blood God.

Now listening to Lady Keter, he understood why.

"Why are you going to Australia in the first place?", Dawn narrowed her eyes, "What are you doing this time?"

"Now, now. You don't pry into others' secrets.", the Lady, surprisingly, defused the argument that was about to erupt, "As you kept secret from Lea about your ritual, she also has the right to keep hers."

"And besides, this one is simple. She doesn't need to actually go there, just the West coast.", she shrugged.

"And more importantly, no way she could get to that land without alerting everyone there. Are you sure you can fight off an entire army?"

Stealth she could handle, two of her Paths are related to concealment after all, her main priority is still diving equipment.

"I'll look into options...", she glanced at Dawn, "After the war."

It was important to Dawn, and being her friend, Lea couldn't just abandon her in the middle. After a few more word exchanges, the meeting ended. But Lady Keter left them with one message.

"The world is about to change, very soon. To live or to die depends on what you do. To become pioneers of a new world, or to become footnotes in history..."

=0=0=

Lea wandered the streets of Renar, her bird mask concealing her face as she moved through the darkness. The war had made patrols more frequent, but her Cloak and Silence enhanced Shadow Sneak made avoiding them trivial.

She wasn't looking for anything in particular. Just... restless. The conversation with Lady Keter kept replaying in her mind.

The world is about to change. Very soon.

What did that mean? What could possibly—

A scream cut through the night. Brief, strangled, then silence.

Lea's head snapped toward the sound. Her emotion radar swept outward, catching something - hunger, satisfaction, predatory glee.

Multiple sources close by were emitting those. She moved through the shadows, following the sensation to an abandoned warehouse near the docks. The building had been empty for months, scheduled for demolition but delayed by the war.

Perfect place for something unsavory.

Lea sank into the darkness, becoming shadow itself as she slipped through a crack in the wall.

Inside, she found them. Three figures hunched over the bodies of four victims, maybe five. The Pathstriders wore ragged clothes stained with old blood. Their hands and mouths were red with fresh carnage, tearing flesh from bone with animalistic fervor.

She had read about it before in one of her visits to the monochrome library, madness and irrationality that consumes oneself. The Material counterpart to Madness - Carnage. They are called Thirsters.

Lea's emotion radar confirmed the bloodlust, the hunger that went beyond normal appetite, the twisted satisfaction of violence for its own sake.

One of them looked up suddenly, nostrils flaring, "Someone's here."

Lea materialized from the shadows ten meters away, Hastur already in hand. Her golden eyes gleamed behind her mask.

"Shadow Guard...?", the leader hissed, recognizing the uniform despite her modifications, "What're you doing here, little bird?"

"Ending this.", Lea replied simply. The Avenger only has one target, like the Count in the book; she would serve justice.

The three Carnage Pathstriders spread out, moving with predatory coordination. Blood dripped from their hands, forming crude blades, clubs, and garrotes. The signature ability of Carnage's Second Step - Blood Shaping.

"Three against one...hehehehe...", the leader grinned, revealing teeth stained red, "Bad odds for you..."

Lea didn't respond. Her Cursed Constructs erupted from her shadow, black tendrils writhing around her like living armor.

The first attacker lunged, blood weapon aimed at her throat.

Lea shadow-stepped, appearing behind him. Hastur's blade flashed, cutting through his hastily formed defense. The man stumbled, clutching a wound that refused to close properly.

The second attacker swung a blood-club at her head.

Lea's Cursed Constructs caught it, absorbing the impact. Her free hand traced symbols in the air, Hexes forming invisible patterns.

The third attacker tried to flank her, but Lea's emotion radar gave her perfect awareness. She twisted, Hastur's point finding his shoulder with surgical precision.

"You're Fourth Step!!" the leader realized, backing away. "Shit—!!"

Lea's Hexes activated.

The warehouse filled with an oppressive sensation of drowsiness so intense it felt like gravity pulling consciousness downward.

All three Thirsters stumbled, fighting to keep their eyes open. This wasn't normal exhaustion. This was her Fourth Step power, the culmination of putting an entire district to sleep.

"What... what are you doing...", the leader slurred.

"Judgement.", Lea said coldly.

Her golden Judgement blades manifested, pinning them in place without killing; she could control their power and intensity better now. The curse intensified her sleep Hexes layered with Silence and Cloak made resistance futile.

One by one, they collapsed into unconsciousness.

But Lea wasn't finished. Her shadow spread across the warehouse floor like spilled ink, reaching the sleeping Thirsters. When it touched them, something changed.

Their expressions twisted. Mouths opened in silent screams. Bodies convulsed even in sleep.

Dream Eater.

This was new, something that had awakened with her Fourth Step ascension. Her shadow didn't just hide her; it could consume their very consciousness, their dreams, their minds.

The Thirsters' thoughts flooded into Lea's awareness. Fragmented memories of violence, hunger, and the descent into madness that came from embracing Carnage too deeply. She saw their victims, dozens of them, lured to isolated places and devoured.

She saw their plans to continue.

To feed.

Lea's shadow pulsed, consuming deeper. Not killing, that would be too merciful. Instead, she ate their capacity for violence, their predatory instincts, the twisted hunger that drove them.

When her shadow receded, the three Pathstriders lay unconscious but fundamentally changed. Their minds wouldn't remember how to hunt humans. The urge to kill for pleasure was simply... gone.

They'd wake up confused, hollow, still Pathstriders but stripped of what made them monsters. It is a fate worse than death, to fulfill their instinct yet not gain any satisfaction.

Lea stood over them, breathing slightly harder. Dream Eater was exhausting, reaching into someone's unconscious mind and selectively removing aspects of their personality wasn't simple.

But it was effective.

And it was hers. A power unique to someone walking the Path of Divinity with her specific combination.

She looked at the bodies of their victims... five in total. Too late to save them, but perhaps early enough to prevent more deaths.

Lea pulled out a signal flare from her coat and lit it outside the warehouse. The authorities would find these three soon enough. Stripped of their violent urges, they'd confess to everything without even understanding why they felt compelled to do so.

As she slipped back into the shadows, Lea considered what she'd just done.

There were three paths to power in this world.

Charlotte the Heretic's method was brutal, requiring millions of deaths to discover, but resulting in power that didn't correlate to any cosmic Law. Freedom through suffering.

The Path of Divinity is easier in some ways, requiring fewer Steps before touching divinity, but demanding the aspirant mirror a cosmic Law. And if that Law didn't approve at the Fourth Step? Instant death. Risk for reward.

Becoming Blessed by a god, the oldest method, predating even the Heretic. A god grants power directly to chosen followers. Safest, but limiting. You gained divine power, but always as a subordinate.

Lea had chosen the Path of Divinity. And now she was discovering what that meant... powers that went beyond normal Pathstrider abilities.

Dream Eater.

Enhanced perception through the mirror world.

The ability to touch minds in ways that shouldn't be possible.

She was becoming something more than human. Something less than god.

A demigod in the truest sense, caught between mortal and divine, walking a path that could lead to either transcendence or annihilation.

The Fifth Step awaits... she thought... Australia, where the Divine Domain of Unconscious resides, three thousand meters beneath the ocean.

But first, she had a war to survive, and a world that was about to change in ways she couldn't yet comprehend.

Lea returned to the palace, slipping through shadows as if they were doorways. The night had been productive, if grim.

Three fewer monsters in the world.

And one more step toward understanding what she was becoming. It was too much for tonight.

In her room, she pulled out the business card from earlier... Golden Emporium, with its Steam Bat symbol.

Qaeidat Habia... the mysterious woman had said... I have goods that could benefit you greatly.

Lea stared at the card for a long moment, then tucked it away.

Later. After the war. After Dawn's ascension stabilized. After she survived Australia.

So many "afters."

If she lived long enough to see them all.

Lea removed her mask and lay down, staring at the ceiling with golden eyes that never quite looked human anymore. The world was changing. And she was changing with it.

Whether that was a good thing remained to be seen.